What Iranians in India think about the war and Tehran

For several nights this month, Nader Mohandesi stayed up till 2 am in his Bengaluru home watching television news about the war between Israel and his country, Iran. The 60-year-old surgeon was worried about his mother, who lives in the Iranian city of Shiraz.

Throughout the war, Mohandesi used to send a WhatsApp message on his family group chat every morning and wait for it to get delivered. “We could not talk everyday because the internet connection in Iran was very weak,” he said. “It was really stressful.”

Things were worse in Tehran, Iran’s capital. An Iranian artist who lives in Delhi told Scroll that his parents and younger sister had to flee the city on the fifth day of the fighting.

“They locked up our house and went to my grandparents’ home in the North-West of Iran,” said the artist who requested anonymity citing privacy concerns. Anxious and unable to sleep, the 38-year-old even considered flying to Turkey or Armenia and making his way to them by land. But his family dissuaded him.

“You go through more stress if you live outside,” he explained.

The Israel-Iran ceasefire, announced on Tuesday by United States President Donald Trump, brought relief to Mohandesi and the artist. But the two differed vastly on what had...

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